Will the Swiss watchmaking industry remain dominant, as it has, arguably, for the last 40 or so years? Jean-Christophe Babin, appointed last year as the CEO of LVMH Watches - after stints as CEO of Tag Heuer and then Bulgari, both brands in the LVMH stable - suggests that it should not assume as much.
For one, he says, there is the rise of Chinese watchmaking, once focused around cheap knock-offs, now increasingly developing its own watch brands with distinctive designs and imported Japanese movements. And then there is the constant need to offer something more than function, which perhaps giant Japanese makers the likes of Casio and Seiko are, he suggests, too focused on.
Jean-Christophe Babin
So what will keep Swiss watches ahead? Story-telling, he suggests. 'Yes, a luxury watch today needs to be founded on a strong brand reputation, or have iconic models - Rolex and Cartier are, for example, the only brands that have the Ballon Bleu or the Daytona,' says Babin. 'Yet even icons have to evolve. The latest Finisssmo from Bulgari, for instance, is a more balanced watch, a different kind of Finissimo, with proportioning that means it can be worn every day, which it wasn’t perhaps before.
'But the Swiss watch ideally tells a story too - and not one necessarily that comes as a result of just being on the market a long time,' stresses Babin, who is also president of Geneva Watch Days, the event he co-founded during Covid, when watch fairs looked to be all but dead. It brings dozens of brands together across Geneva to show their wares and, critically, do so to the public, for free. 'Bulgari’s Serpenti watch, for example, has only been on the market since 2010 but looks to the kind of bracelets worn in Rome 2000 years ago. Creating that kind of narrative that puts a watch company in a much stronger position than a one that’s just been launched, without yet either resources or history.'
The Zenith Chronomaster Sport
Nor is finding such an arresting story the only challenge. Babin concedes that for the big brands the volume market - which he suggests is for watches priced around €2000 to €8000 - is going to get increasingly tough, both because it’s only economical if it sells a lot of watches, and because new start-up brands are now offering consumers more affordable rival options often made with the same components. 'Keep in mind too that even big brands have small market shares,' he warns.
He would also like to see these brands take a bolder, more radical stance when it comes to design, both because that’s way to carve out a strong market position - it was Babin who drove Tag Heuer’s move towards developing luxury connected watches, a segment it now commands - but also because the industry tends to underplay the notion that most watch customers fall in love with a look, not a movement.
'The engine,' he says, 'has to be mobilised for the design. The aesthetic comes first. We have to invest more in desirability so purchasing a watch in that price bracket isn’t a once in the lifetime event but perhaps one that happens every few years, so those people who didn’t plan to buy a watch at all will do so. If that sector wants to survive long term there are few other options. For me the job is about encouraging brands to be more ambitious.'
Not that Babin thinks that the Swiss watch industry is on some kind of precipice. He has, after all, been here before: 'My career has gone through five or six financial crises, the pandemic, wars, and I think as an industry will see more and more of those kinds of challenges,' he says. 'But if I was reasonably successful it was because I never accepted that events meant the brands I managed wouldn’t remain strong and profitable, even if they didn’t [always] grow.'
The seventh edition of Geneva Watch Days will be September 2nd to 6th. See gva-watch-days.com